Tesla Inc (TSLA)

Can they do what they promise? If they can, then this is a really important business. They're selling the best driving experience, not e-cars that only so many want to buy. The answer to this question remains to be seen. Also, he's uncomfortable with Elon Musk's tweets. Musk is a visionary and hard-working, but as in investor he needs to see profitability which isn't there yet.

They make beautiful cars, but Musk has been inconsistent and are burning a lot of cash. Musk needs somebody who can actually run a car business. Musk is a visionary, but he needs to run a business, like Steve Jobs at Apple needed somebody. He will likely do an equity issue and dilute the stock. If Tesla keeps missing numbers, competitors will slowly catch up.

He's short Tesla. Forget the Elon Musk stuff. They have balance sheet and cash flow problems--they can't pay their
suppliers. They also have many production issues.

He wants to have confidence in a company’s CEO, but Musk is erratic. Entrepreneurs often build a company well but stay too long. That is a pronounced problem at Tesla at this time. Also, until recently, Tesla had the luxury electric vehicle market to its own. Now major manufacturers, such a Mercedes, are announcing that they will make these types of vehicles within the next few years. This competition will work against Tesla.

Valuation is bothersome and the owner is erratic. They have trouble bringing product to market and they are burning through capital. He likes the car and e-cars, but the company is quite overvalued.

The problem is that it is a car company run by a guy that doesn’t understand the manufacturing aspect. A high cap ex industry. It has overpromised and underdelivered. The CEO has been very erratic. Burning too much cash.

The caller asked whether to short Tesla. Goodreid does not short companies. His general concern with shorting stocks is that even if the short thesis is correct, the stock might have enough momentum over the near term to cause a short squeeze and cost the investor a lot of money. He thinks that Tesla is way overvalued, but because it has a cult following, he thinks that it might cause real financial pain to people who short it.

During the time of the show, Elon Musk tweeted a potential buyout of Tesla at $420 and the stock started rallying. Hurst’s comment was that the Tesla price fluctuations this summer are an illustration of the problem of signal and noise. There is all sorts of irrelevant noise about this stock, and investors are over-focused on the production numbers for Model 3. He thinks there is tremendous embedded value in the company and that SpaceX alone might be worth this much. Tesla’s cash burn is important, but the embedded value is being missed.

The short traders like this one – and he thinks they are right. They are burning a ton of cash, but have met their production numbers. It is not the most transparent company and there are now more companies coming into the electric care space and they are not developing autonomous driving technology. He is staying away.